Spa, UNESCO World Heritage Site

Spa and Europe’s great spa towns listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites!

11 towns, 7 countries, 1 UNESCO World Heritage Site. Spa is the first Walloon town to receive this international recognition. On Saturday 24 July 2021, the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee held in Fuzhou (China) decided to include the “Great European Spa Towns”, in which Spa represents Belgium, on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

This series of transnational bids brings together 11 cities in 7 European countries: Baden bei Wien in Austria, Spa in Belgium, Vichy in France, Baden-Baden, Bad Ems and Bad Kissingen in Germany, Montecatini Terme in Italy, Bath in the United Kingdom, and Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně in the Czech Republic.

These eleven towns, which developed around natural mineral springs, represent a complex and unprecedented cultural movement and urban typology: the spa town. Les Grandes Villes d’Eaux d’Europe is an exceptional testimony to the phenomenon of European thermalism, which reached its apogee between 1700 and the 1930s. For Europe’s most important spa towns, it’s a magnificent accolade.

Inclusion on the World Heritage List will bring Europe’s great water cities not only recognition of their outstanding universal value, but also greater protection and enhanced cooperation in the fields of heritage conservation, balneotherapy (water treatment) and health, culture and tourism. In Wallonia, the work begun several years ago was carried out by the Agence wallonne du Patrimoine (AWaP) in collaboration with the City of Spa.